The Best Songs of 2023
ISSUE #268
That first song you hear? That’s my #1 song of the year. That’s right—for the first time in Earwyrms history, I have made a best-of playlist from one to ten. Grief demands you do something different, and—like Soderbergh producing the 93rd Academy Awards—only time will tell if we fell for seductive folly or landed on love’s new paradigm. My reasons?
I want to hear my favorite song the second I press play.
Who was the last person who finished a playlist in one sitting?
With all the advertisers boycotting, I am no longer required to keep you on the webpage.
I want to hear my favorite song the second I press play.
Why did I hold off for so long? The rust of Web 2.0, I suppose. From Pigeons & Planes to Pitchfork, I grew up on the suspense economy, structured 100 to 1. Keep ‘em scolling, keep ‘em scrolling…
But hey—you can’t wake up if you don’t fall asleep.
1. “The Grants” | Lana Del Rey
Not to get maudlin (but this is Earwyrms—it’ll happen), but I still can’t hear the end when she sings “My sister’s firstborn child” without some tears breaking loose. The choir splits into harmony like light through a pawned prism—we don't end, that's for certain. I don't know much else, but I know that we don't end.
2. “A Running Start” | Sufjan Stevens
This year, Sufjan fulfulled his dialectic—Thesis: Michigan; Illinois. Antithesis: Seven Swans; Carrie & Lowell. Synthesis: Javelin.
3. “A Bewildering and Bedazzling Celestial Mystery” | Alexandre Desplat
The vagabond spirit of not knowing what it means, but playing through it anyway.
4. “vampire” | Olivia Rodrigo
When the system drop-ships a karaoke classic, you don’t ask questions.
5.“Turbines/Pigs” | Black Country, New Road
To think—these kids all play music together.
6. “Summer Glass” | Julie Byrne
“To be whole enough to risk again.”
7. “Hinoki Wood” | Gia Margaret
The mind is a blackboard, and this is the eraser.
8. “Welcome to My Island” | Caroline Polachek
Well? Shake her hand!
9. “Paint the Town Red” | Doja Cat
The refreshing spirit of a hired killer.
10. “Three Drums” | Four Tet
It's a beautiful life—remember that, too. For me.
That first song you hear? That’s my #1 song of the year. That’s right—for the first time in Earwyrms history, I have made a best-of playlist from one to ten. Grief demands you do something different, and—like Soderbergh producing the 93rd Academy Awards—only time will tell if we fell for seductive folly or landed on love’s new paradigm.
A collection of the best songs from these first several months, featuring Gia Margaret, Jessy Lanza, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, JPEGMAFIA, Danny Brown, Wednesday, ANOHNI and the Johnsons, Jess Williamson, and more.
The trouble with writing about music every week is you don’t actually end up knowing that much more about music. Quite less, in fact. The time, the work, the attempted balance leads to short cuts, and I become more drawn to the oldies and goodies instead of pressing play on something new.
The future is back, baby! Coming at the heels of two bifurcated years—one by a virus, the other its vaccine—2022 stands tall in history as the year the Great Machine roared back to life. Belch ye black smoke into that unbearable blue sky!
Welcome to your Earwyrms Wyrpped for 2022. This year, we explored a lot of new genres here in the dirt, from phonk to roadhouse, dungeon synth to goth. We got through 42 issues together, but your favorites were the ones that sounded like home. Here are the most popular Earwyrms issues of 2022.
A confession: I have not finished a single book all year. I normally average between 15 and 30 by year’s end. And listen, I’ve tried—oh! have I tried.
When did 2021 begin? Was it January 1st? It couldn’t be—that was thirty Jeffreys ago. Was it two weeks after we got the second shot? That was May 1st for me. Half a year went by before I emerged, stunted and shaking.
This is the year of our reclaimed youth: I’ve loved more skate pop and power emo this year than I have since Earwyrms began. Last year around this time, music’s big players were coping with the pandemic by dropping albums early or cashing in on nostalgia while young bands waited in the wings and prayed there’d be a future to play through.
We're here—I'll get right to it, but I want to say thank you for reading. Also, I've put them all into a playlist arranged from top to bottom, for whenever you have six hours to kill. Now, for the final leg of the tour:
As we enter the Top 50, you know the routine—this is not a race but a retrospective, and while I do admit that the closer we get to #1, the closer these songs get to my heart, I will not be handing out any trophies.
As I said before, lists can be as prescriptive as they are restrictive if they are read as a hierarchy. Mine should not be; they're subject to the whims of my everyday thoughts and feelings (two of my most favorite things—until we reach the limit of my being and encounter yours). I intend to serve and share, not impose. This is less a competition than a hundred-course meal for the ears, each song a specialty dish on a gourmet menu.
Know that lists like these are flawed by their very nature, limiting art the same way pinning an identity to your infinite spirit will limit what you feel you're able to become. With that in mind, these numbers are not a hierarchy—they are more like tree tags marking a path through a dazzling forest. Think of this more as a guided tour of nature than a tournament or competition.
One of the most frequent questions I get is about how I’ve been able to pick up temporary work throughout my travels without falling afoul of the law.
One of the most frequent questions I get is about how I’ve been able to pick up temporary work throughout my travels without falling afoul of the law.
I can't leave without saying that I lament this had to be on Spotify because it meant I couldn't put Joanna Newsom on the list. Just know that there's a good chance she would've cracked the Top 10, and go listen to Have One on Me if you never have before.
A large chunk of the Top 40 are love songs, a thing I guess I'm just obsessed with. With music being the most directly emotional art, it's natural that this medium best explores these weird heart feelings.
We're getting to the hardest part now—do I really have to choose between two masterpieces, to arbitrarily put one over another? I do. Which is why I must remind you: these opinions are not definitive; they're not even sound. Best songs are as subjective as bagel preferences.
Lots of sad ones this time—sorry!—that's just how the chips fell this round. As I said last week, this project is not meant to be an edict from some supreme musical being, just a catalog of what this idiot kept coming back to over and over since 2010. Ultimately a narrow purview, but maybe you'll hear something you like.
I could say a bunch of sweeping things about the past ten years, but the truth is a decade is hard to package together coherently. I will say that ten years is fun because it's all about what sticks with you.
Here are my twenty favorite songs of the year so far, in reverse order to build suspense. Hold on tight!
To kick off this month of Top 10 Countdowns, I wanted to share the ten best movies of the year. They're more my favorites than the objective best, which is true of all lists, but of this one especially because I didn't get time to see many movies during the tumult of the year.
Listen to my favorite songs of the past six months so you can enjoy them before the summer is over. I wrote about them below in classic backwards-list order, and the playlist mirrors it.
Technically, halfway through the year is next Monday, July 1st. This is a leap year, after all. They’re the only years where there’s an even split in days; the only times the divide falls at midnight, not noon.